The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1887-07-09
The Gettysburg Meeting.

The friendly meeting of the Union
and Confederate veterans on the bat
tlefeld of Gettysburg affords one of
the most extraordinary spectacles
ever set forth in history. The records
of civil wars from the days of an
cient Greece and Rome down to the
present era show no such instance of
the restoration of good fellowship as
that afforded by this memorable
occasion.
Civil wars, as distinguished from
international conflicts. have uniform
ly been more savage and relentless,
and the wounds left by them have
required ages for their healing. But
in this instance we find that only
twenty-four years have elapsed since
the men of Pickett's Division and of
the Philadelphia Brigade met in one
of the deadliest rencontres of the
great struggle, while to-day the gal
liant survivors are sitting around the
same camp fires. parading iunder the
same flag, and exchanging greetings
of the most genuine and enthusiastic
character. In no other country could
such unique example of patriotism
be possible. In no other country
could the acerbities of a furious and
prolonged conflict have vanished so
quickly. These things are made
possible in this land by the beneficent
nature of our government, by the
homogeneity of our blood, and by
the patriotic impulses of a free and
enlightened people rising above
every other consideration.
When the war ended in April,
1865. there were few who could have
been brought to believe that the era
of determination would set in so
speedily. The chasm of blood be.
tween the North and the South
seemed too wide and too deep to dry
up under several generations. There
were bitterness and hatred on both
sides, and there were politicians who
constantly famed the sectional flame
for their own selfish purposes. But
blood is thicker than water, and the
patriotism of the American people
has ever risen superior to the selfish
ends of the politicians. Within few
years it transpired that while the
political parties were fighting it out
on sectional lines, the old soldiers
were being drawn together again.
and that despite the efforts of design
ing men to keep the latent fires of
war aglow, the men who had fought
the country's battles were actually
preparing to shake hands and 10 for
get and to forgive. There has been
no interruption to the growth of this
feeling until now, on Gettysburg's
CORY field, it has eliminated in an
outburst of common patriotism un-
paralleled in the annals of time.
Such quick process of binding up
the wounds of war could not have
happened in France, or in Germany,
or in any other European nation. In
Rome and Greece the hostilities en-
gendered by civil wars lasted for
generations. In England they con-
tinued for centuries. In America
they are wiped out in twenty-five
years.
All honor and glory to the chival.
ric soldiers who have furnished to
the world this wonderful manifesto.
tion of kindred feeling between the
Scared warriors of the great armies
whose tread shook this continent for
four years. All shame to the selfish |
politicians who shall hereafter en-.
deavor to revive the unworthy feel
ing of sectional hatred. baltimore
Herald, July 4.